Inside Yorick’s Update with Solcrushed and more!

Riot·9/2/2016, 6:07:21 PM·1 votes·26,328 views

Welcome to the latest League Podcast, a series in which we take you behind-the-scenes with the people who help make League possible. Expect new guests and new stories every couple of weeks or so, and make sure to hit us with those comments and ratings so we can keep striving toward a Challenger-tier podcast.

This week, designer Sol “Solcrushed” Kim and writer John O’Bryan tell the story of transforming Yorick from gravedigger to The Shepherd of Lost Souls.


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77 Comments

13OO139/6/2016, 6:15:50 PM115 votes

PLease make a Landscaper Yorick! I know it's early but, Here's the plan:

Look: tan skin, jeans, boots, baseball hat or bucket hat, tucked in button up shirt saying "yorick's landscaping" on the back. just a big regular shovel.

Passive:graves look like freshly planted flowers and the summoned minions look about the same but with little shirts and hats that say "yorick's landscaping" q: ya know, shovel glows then he hits you with it, pretty standard. w: first circle of seeds, then bushes pop up to block movement. (maybe with creepy faces still in bushes) e: throws a shovel full of dirt! r: summons a big guy in yorick landscaping uniform but, he has a big leaf blower that that is doing the damage! or the cheap version just the guy in the uniform doing the same old stuff.

Anyways you guys are smart I'm sure you are already on to something like this, but we all know this guy needs a few more skins.

Razzarian9/6/2016, 6:48:26 PM5 votes

Yorick walks into a bar...there** was** no counter Ekko

Epic rekit9/6/2016, 6:17:34 PM4 votes

yorick used to be op, he still is and this update will just balance him, i like the old yorick and i will play him 100 games before you ruin him and rework him

The Thereminist9/7/2016, 9:25:03 PM3 votes

Riot, I'd appreciate a response on this one, as I haven't had any sort of clarification on this in the past. My circumstance is a bit unfortunate. I gravitated most to the most obscure and underplayed champs when I began playing League - Urgot, Galio, and Taric top, Singed, Yorick, the like. Sort of made a name for myself because of it, and so I started looking into more older champions and just found I could never put them down. Something about their kits, maybe the simplicity, maybe how they're used, always appealed to me. Taric was my favourite by far. I got to love him so much that after taking so much as a day hiatus from League, hearing his walking quotes could literally bring tears to my eyes. I felt bonded with the champion, and that's when the rework stripped my love for the game away from me. It's difficult, seeing such a drastic change made to a character you've created a bond with. Unfortunately, my next best champion, Urgot (my first love in a champ), and two of my reliable fallbacks, Galio and Yorick, are going to receive the same major changes soon, and before that happens, I want to get this sentiment heard and possibly influence what could be. Riot, I don't think it's fair you rip what people love about champions away entirely to create something that more than those people can and will love - not when there's a feasible middle ground. Yorick isn't a simple gravedigger any more, for example, and there was something charming about that. He was just a normal guy, really, succumbed to a tragic and magical fate, cursed to carry out his family's legacy for all of eternity. Now he's a monk or something set out to cure the Shadow Isles of its corruption by using the evil spawn to fuel his crusade. That's a really cool idea, but that doesn't make erasing something others held so dearly okay. Wasn't there a way to find a peaceful middle ground and keep more true to his simple, tragic origins, while capitalizing on ways to make his story (with some more minor changes of course)into an interesting kit? Taric's another example: I loved that Taric was a simple kid trying to grow up to be like his father. I loved that he turned a tragedy - being summoned to the League - into a way to gloriously live through his father's work, and help others do the same. His fascination with gems, his story of being a small town boy looking to do something important and being burdened to do so much more, his delicate, obsessed, gentle, dutiful attitude - that resonated with me. New Taric still retains very, very few of those elements - and even thematically is very different - with an almost entirely overhauled kit that functions in a way where it does not fill the same spot as what we lost. That doesn't mean a lot to everyone though, I know that. Not a lot of people are as invested in a champion as someone like me, but this middle ground is something I feel Riot should explore. Quite frankly, this update schedule is essentially ruining this game for me. I'm sure there are probably a few people out there who feel the same way. Why not cater to both of those demographics? Why not keep your base material and make changes, to show the old charm that some people loved while still creating a fresh champion design and some updated lore that better coincides with Riot's current standards to appease those who appreciate more polished champions? Riot, please, I implore you to consider this and at least give some feedback to shed some light on your thought process in the matter, and perhaps address the possibility of a compromise and why the probability of said compromise in future champion reworks is what it is. On behalf of everyone who mourns over the loss of some of their favourite champions with these reworks, thank you for reading this and for any consideration.

TerraRising9/6/2016, 8:47:24 PM3 votes

Thanks for the shoutout, Zwill.

However, given how other people who dislike this rework have been treated by your fellow Rioters and how snarky Scarizard gave his shout-out a few minutes earlier, I can't say that this podcast alleviates my disdain for this rework.

3rd kid killer9/6/2016, 10:10:55 PM3 votes

I played Yorick main for nearly the entire first year of having the game. I've been playing for about two and a half years now, and I hardly ever play him anymore. The rework has me exited. as much as I love the simplicity of yorick I'm eager to see him reclaim resurrect his glory in that way only our grave digging omen of death can.Yorick summoner 3 soon the best support shall return

Beedle9/7/2016, 3:57:11 AM2 votes

You really shouldn't ask current mains of any champion what they think about a champion rework. They almost never like it initially, no matter the scope of the rework. It's even less important what current mains think when it comes to champions that almost no one plays.

Zelnick9/6/2016, 7:40:53 PM2 votes

Can he have a chainsaw arm while holding the necronomicon?

Xeranis Azourael9/7/2016, 12:46:40 AM2 votes

@ [43:21] (SolCrushed?) - So how come you guys didn't just swap Yorick's (pre-rework) Ult with Mordekaiser's Ult (sans Dragon)?? Gameplay-wise, it made more sense for Yorick to have had Morde's Ult (a damage-dealing pet→Yorick's 4th minion), and for Morde to have adopted Yorick's (pre-rework) Ult (ally "revival"), especially after Morde's intended shift to botlane, due to the Juggernaut rework. What's now the Maiden of the Mist could've been the soul of a dead enemy champion, but still behaving like the Mist Maiden, and still escorted by a team of Mistwalkers. An ult swap would've been an efficient band-aid solution for both of them at the time (during the Juggernaut update).

SuperCosmicHobo9/7/2016, 2:58:29 AM2 votes

If Yorick's power is based on his minions. How does he win someone with really high cc? Or how will he sustain in lane if his minions just gets cc, shouldn't they at least have some sort of small cc resistance like Elise's spiderlings? Also side note, anyone with life steal is still healing off of Shen's W even though it says blocked. Makes no sense and trades don't work well with Shen, literally making his W half as effective.

Kheldorin9/7/2016, 4:03:10 AM1 votes

What is riot doing so badly they can't afford video now? I mean if you guys need to borrow $10 for a webcam let me know... Seriously who the hell listens to audio only recordings? People don't even do audio only on phones anymore do they?

OWL CORVO PhD9/7/2016, 12:02:56 PM1 votes

remember his name... always.

Crusty Shovel9/7/2016, 4:58:45 PM1 votes

as a Yorick main I have longed for a new skin many have come to my mind over the time playing. Junkyard Yorick, Gatekeeper (Gravekeeper), Reaper like Hecs shadow isle type,and or a Spooky or Spectral( as seen on Fid and GP, last but not least a fire type oriented skin something like zyras perhaps.

NickTDesigns9/6/2016, 11:00:53 PM1 votes
  • Blood Moon Yorick
  • PROJECT Yorick
  • Pool Party Yorick ;)
  • Head Hunter Yorick
  • TRADITIONAL YORICK
  • Other yorick skins
ChiefSmakaho9/8/2016, 12:04:36 AM1 votes

Just make a friggen Hippie skin, where he summons ghouls with flower suits on. I'd buy that shnizz immediately. I could play him like a boss before,hope the change is worth it.

Hey Its Ahri9/8/2016, 1:38:04 PM1 votes

Im glad Yorick got a rework :D

Caples9/8/2016, 4:22:40 PM1 votes

I can't be the only one that absolutely hates what has been done to Yorick. There's not a single thing I like about him now. I mained him over the last year or two and I can already say right now that I'll never play him again.

He looks stupid now when he had such great potential for a visual rework rather than an overhaul. He's not fun to play any more and has absolutely zero relation to Yorick as he used to be. Legitimately the only problems with him were that he was very difficult to play well and that teammates were too stupid to realize when they'd been ulted.

Once again I find myself looking at Sol's work and shaking my head. Thanks for ruining my favorite champ, dude.

Prior of the Ori9/8/2016, 4:59:51 PM1 votes

This riot. This.

http://imgur.com/a/GdK6V

PUG Mizore9/8/2016, 8:00:57 PM1 votes

Hey so I been playing yorik a bit and a lot makes him very very uncontrolled? like towers auto focus maiden when split pushing..... your goal to make a 2 lane split pusher dies there =/ same wit zombies but the tower focuses her first that's a lil.... bad cause now teams just have to waittill she hits a tower and welp... its over I feel like that's a huge flaw now no one has to go over there or do anything really